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Work

The tools, rules, and relationships of the workplace illustrate some of the enduring collaborations and conflicts in the everyday life of the nation. The Museum has more than 5,000 traditional American tools, chests, and simple machines for working wood, stone, metal, and leather. Materials on welding, riveting, and iron and steel construction tell a more industrial version of the story. Computers, industrial robots, and other artifacts represent work in the Information Age.

But work is more than just tools. The collections include a factory gate, the motion-study photographs of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and more than 3,000 work incentive posters. The rise of the factory system is measured, in part, by time clocks in the collections. More than 9,000 items bring in the story of labor unions, strikes, and demonstrations over trade and economic issues.

Data General was primarily a mini-computer company. But in 1984, it introduced the Data General-One (DG-1), a breakthrough personal computer laptop. The Data General One weighed nine pounds, ran MS-DOS, had dual 3 ½" diskettes, 79-key full stroke keyboard, 128 KB to 512 KB of RAM, and a monochrome LCD screen. It ran on a CMOS 80C88 processor. Unlike other "luggable" computers of the era, the DG-1 was light enough to carry on travel, but also powerful enough to emulate a desktop.

The DG-1 enjoyed only mediocre success. Its 3 ½" diskettes were slightly ahead of their time, and much popular software was not available in 3 ½" format. Adding to the problem, software copyright protection made copying into the 3 ½" format difficult. In addition, the DG-1 base price was relatively high at $2,895, and the real cost tended to be even higher, because users generally needed both more RAM and an external 5 ¼" drive to run disks from their desktop machines.

Pronto Systems, Inc. introduced its Pronto Series 16 computer in 1983. It represented the high end of business computing of its era. The Pronto pioneered innovative design features, including a tilting and swiveling monitor, small foot print, a streamlined and adjustable keyboard, and an expandable cord that allowed the processor to be stored as much as six feet away from the monitor. These features won a 1983 design award from Industrial Design Magazine. The computer offered the first tower system—a design that later became common in the industry.

Inside, the Pronto 16 was a powerful machine designed for the full range of business applications. It had a 16-bit Intel 80186 microprocessor. It was shipped with MS-DOS 2.0. It had 128 KB of RAM, which could be expanded to 1 MB. The standard hard drive was 5.6 MB, and it was removable. The computer had dual 800 KB floppy drives (5 ¼"), dual serial ports, one parallel port, and a high-resolution monochrome monitor. Users could buy a color monitor as an option. Base price was $3,000.

Over 1,000 systems were sold from 1983 to 1987. The company had to file for bankruptcy when the stock market crashed while the company was in the process of going public through an Initial Public Offering.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Spanish. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Chinese. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in French. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Italian. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Korean. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Greek. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Portugese. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.

Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Flemish. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.

The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.